Page 3 of An Unexpected Everything
Then my hand was on hers and we were both shouting, muscles straining. Somehow, she lay beside me on the edge of the hillside, both of us breathing heavily, my chest heaving.
As my mind struggled to process what had just happened, I sat up and looked down at the woman who had once claimed my heart. The woman who had every right to push me down that cliff and never look back.
“You. It had to be you.”
Bella finally got a good look at me, her eyes widening, and I knew she’d clocked on who I was. We both looked different than we had all those years ago, but notthatdifferent. My beard was longer, my hair similarly so. I had more ink down my arms, and even more where she couldn’t see.
Bella though?
Somehow, she’d become even more gorgeous and I thought I could resent her for it. She’d cut her hair a bit shorter than I’d last seen her, but the chestnut of it still called to my hands. I’d once loved running my fingers through it, then tugging slightly as I crushed my mouth to hers. Or I’d hold on tight so I could slide my cock between those pouty lips of hers. She had the same curves—her handful-sized breasts that pushed at her torn T-shirt, her hips that had been perfect grips for me, her sweet thighs that had clamped around my shoulders when she’d sat on my face.
“You.”
The vitriol in her voice didn’t surprise me. The need to growl right back did. Because it wasn’t her fault she hated me. I deserved it. But as I’d just saved her life, maybe she could have waited five fucking minutes before doing what Bella did best—tear me a new one with that passion that had always turned me on.
“Yes.Me. What the hell are you doing here, Isabella?”
She flinched at the sound of her name and I tried not to let it cut. Because Bella was the girl I left behind, not the woman with blood on her hands and jeans in front of me. I needed to use the name that wasn’ther.
“Shit. You’re hurt.” I was a fucking asshole and needed to think of her for once and not my own pent-up feelings.
“I’m fine,” she bit out. Yet as she tried to roll over and stand up, she let out a hiss when her cut-up hands touched the ground.
“You’re not fine. You’re going to get those cuts infected if you don’t fucking take care of them.”
She blinked at me, her dirt-covered face pale. “Don’t yell at me! How are you here? Of all people. It’s beenyears,Weston. How are you in this tiny town in the mountains?”
“Let me help you up,” I said in way of answer. It’s not like I had any real answers for her. Nothing made sense right now and I didn’t know why she was here inmytown. The town I’d been forced to cage myself in over time in order to protect my family. To protect the kids. Because nothing else would have worked.
“Please don’t touch me.”
I froze in the action of reaching out, her words a slice to the soul. “Isabella.”
Once again, she flinched but forced herself to stand on her own. “How are you here, Weston? Was Cage Lake your hometown this whole time? The little mountain town that you always said suffocated you. The place that you swore you’d never go back to?Thistown?”
Considering where we were, there was no point in lying. Not when I now stood with Bella so close to me, I could feel the heat of her through my flannel.
“This is home.” Simple words for a not so simple truth.
She swallowed hard, her chin rising. “Home.” Before she could add anything to that whisper, she swayed on her feet and I reached out to steady her, cursing.
“You need to see a doctor. Come on, Doc Henry should still be in his office. That man was pretty much here when the Cages up and built the town all those years ago.”
“I didn’t know this was your town, Weston,” she said after a moment, her eyes pleading. “Just…just let me go.”
Like you did once before.
At least that was the subtext I let myself hear.
“The way I hear it, it’s your town too.” I could have kicked myself for mentioning it. For letting her know thatIknew about her connection to the Cages. But now there was no going back. Not when I was the fucking idiot who’d put us here.
She took a step back and I reached out without thinking to steady her. “Don’t touch me.”
I didn’t let my hand fall. “For fuck’s sake, Bella. You’re three steps from falling off the damn cliff again. So no, I’m not going to let you keep going because this is awkward. Now let’s get you to the damn doctor so I can make sure you’re okay.”
She pulled away from me in that moment and I only let her because I realized my mistake.
Bella.
